Poetry

Saturday, 11 November 2023

Any old Adam

 Well paradise was full of birds and bees

And elephants with long trunks

Tucked up their sleeves

And God said, look who's that man Eve

And she said - I don't know him from Adam


Now Eve, I thought I told you not to mess around with boys

You know you will break my equipment

These men are not toys

I have already given you several models named Steve

So who's this one Eve?

And Eve said I don't know him from Adam


But Eve said, this one's different, I can feel it in my bones

For now I've set the ball rolling, it's like a rolling stone

And please stop this cajolling, insistent tone

God said do you still believe in me Eve?

Eve said, well I don't know you from Adam


Just then a snake slithered down from up in the leaves

Eve thought he was a rope so gave him a heave

Hey kid quit pulling me down,  what are ya tryin to achieve?

Eve said oh you must be new in town, because I don't know you from Adam


Well if that's how you treat a stranger, I think I'll get myself lost

I can see a three leafed clover, there's a manger and a holy ghost

Perhaps if I went in, they might give me a warmer toast

Eve said I doubt it unless you can shed your skin,

They don't know you from Adam


And Adam said to God, I don't know if I  really know myself

God said here's a mirror, look within you'll find I am your twin

And so they embraced, like long lost cousins, and Adam got a lump in his throat

And God got a pain in his neck, and before you could say paradise

Eve appeared with an apple


Now I'm willin' to marry a twin, you don't have to ask me twice

But before we tie the ribbon, I think it would be nice

If you can introduce him, the one with the snake eyes

And God said I would but I don't know him from Adam




Bees in your bonnet

 All in the cans of the cantalope

All in the knowledge of the elope

He went with blinkers over his scope

And thinkers in his graveyard's hope


Sure you say the dogs will bite

Well it's you they bay for every night

And the fierce fires roar outside your door

And kites

That soar


Too true the cruel hand of time

Has passed us all by twisted crime

For fate will fall upon the wall

Where sunlight still shines


Then the dial on the church 

Shall cast its shadows like the birch

That sways above your kind of love and mine

That's fine


Inside the hour where birds do sing

And the dogs they cower as the bear does swing

His massive claw at your door

Or mine

That's fine


There are bees and birds and hymns

In the gutter with the butter and the pea shooter kings 

Who throw their shells like cartridges

Back at black and white partridges

The Day the Council Flooded

The Salisbury Rain
Always falls on the plain
While the tiger in the woods
Stalks the badger again
The lion down the lane
Roars when I pedal passed
But it seems I can't complain
You either play dead or cycle fast
The council forgot the recycling today
Its been the 19th week
And the rubbish won't go away
Bristol Zoo let out its animals
In a green protest
But I must attest
Though they are a pest
They certainly liven up the place

Then this Noah from number 42
Said he'd solve the problem by counting two by two
Then the rains fell fast
And I believed his resolve wouldn't last
But he'd already built a boat
Called a floating zoo

Well the council didn't like it
But they had to accept
It was a darned sight better
Than what they'd come to expect

And yet still the bin men didn't come
Now the water table you could dine one
We found plastic milk bottles
Lashed together make a fine pontoon
To stand on

And Noah he took the animals round a tour of Salisbury plain
That had become the new hotspot of flood tourism
And migration again

Great White Egret

 Come spread your white wings

About my rusty springs

Oh Egret of the Sandy lands

Up here in migrant fare


Come be blown like a sack cloth

Pure white as a snow flake, sin-free

Come spread your angel wings

About me, sit in my Ash tree


Come burn a white hot flame

Down by the cold black lake

And write in your smoke signals

The message of my mistake


You are my guardian Angel

You take away my pain

I pray to you Great Egret

Far off in the beating rain



Fairy tale migration

Cindy works in a shoe shop
Goldie is a hair dresser
She makes bears look better
And is an animal beautician
Red riding hood is a ranger
who hunts wolves

Her God mother comes to stay
She has turned into a migrant worker
That's the American way


Thursday, 9 November 2023

The Emperor Crumb

 The Emperor Crumb arrived

All so flakey

With his several wives

And a shot in the dark

Brought the jam to his eyes

He was up to his ears in honey

But money reigned from the skies


The emperor, the emperor he has come

Roll out the red carpets

And beat on the drum

No more starvation

No more long sighs

For he has brought bread and milk

and nobody dies


Crumb, crumb, the Emperor crumb

Has come on the backs of the monks and the nuns

He's chewed his banana and sucked on his thumb

Oh how shall I tell you of the Emperor Crumb?


The mud fills his boots, and the day looks like done

But who's that in the distance like a big currant bun

Rolling as a steamboat and red as a tongue

Flown like a seagull across vast oceans come

All hail the arrival of the Great Emperor Crumb

Tom Saucepan

 Clemens was born at the age of 100 and wanted to be a steamboat pilot. He trained as a pilot on a steamboat when he was 81 years old. He got his license 2 years later at the age of 79. He married Alveria and they had 4 old age children. After being a successful writer during his 60s, 50s and 40s in which he based many of his novels on his old ages as a steamboat pilot. His 30s and 20s saw him lauded as one of the country's most prominent writers of children's fiction for adult. Though he looked comical he actually took himself very seriously, writing serious comedy for very silly serious-minded people. He tragically died at the age of 0.